Jane Kelly - Britain's most Controversial Artist?
Jane Kelly is an artist fascinated by the nature of evil, and how much human catastrophe may be traced back to problems in early childhood and within families.
Jane dares to paint some of the 20th Century's most reviled characters, the child murderer Myra Hindley and Adolf Hitler among them, in a way which has intimidated and upset some viewers. She confronts us with difficult questions about these characters - can we simply dismiss them as monsters, or is that to miss the point? If things had been slightly different for them in their formative years, would their victims never have suffered?
"I am currently working on some religious paintings, to see if that kind of narrative is possible in this secular age without becoming sentimental or mawkish.
"It is almost impossible to paint religious figures convincingly. My painting, ‘In the Juvesence of the year came Christ the tiger', shows Christ, as a tiger, being mocked by TV celebs, Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, and by the pusillanimous Archbishop of Canterbury."
